


Paying Respects

by wvwv



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Gen, The People's Tomb Fic Jam: First
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:48:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26919871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wvwv/pseuds/wvwv
Summary: The first thing Gideon did when Aiglamene gave her the sword was run off to visit her mother’s makeshift grave.In which Gideon is wrong about absolutely everything.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 46





	Paying Respects

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-GtN.
> 
> Gideon would be around early/mid teens here. I assume she got her two-hander only after she was big enough to use it.
> 
> Also Wake doesn't really _appear_ in this, she's only there in spirit lol

The first thing Gideon did when Aiglamene gave her the sword was run off to visit her mother’s makeshift grave. Well, technically, the first thing Gideon did was sit through a lecture on proper form and maintenance, and then the second thing she did was train with Aiglamene until the Captain was satisfied that Gideon wasn’t going to embarrass herself by shearing her own head off by accident. But the first thing she did once Aiglamene released her was make a beeline towards her mother’s landing site.

It was probably stupid—no, scratch that, it was definitely stupid. She might as well walk around with a giant sign above her head proclaiming: HUGE SENTIMENTAL BABY. It just… felt like the right thing to do. Her mother was probably the only person on the Ninth who had ever cared about Gideon—her last actions had been to sacrifice herself to ensure Gideon’s survival. The least Gideon could do was keep her updated on what she gave up her life for.

The rest of the Ninth weren’t Gideon’s biggest fans, to say the least, so she did her best to avoid them on her way down, taking creaking supply lifts and cramped, crumbling back hallways. She was in too good a mood to deal with short-tempered derision—without showing them exactly what she could do with her new sword, that is. The only people she ran into en route were Harrow’s parents, right after she parted from Aiglamene. They had drifted silently down the hall in creepy lockstep with one another, completely ignoring Gideon, which suited her just fine. Back when they were alive, upon being graced by the presence of their beloved servant, they would’ve favoured her with scandalised double takes and demanded to know what she was doing, but now they just mutely carried out whatever command Harrow had set for them. Gideon was actually a little surprised Harrow had taken them out at all, given there was no service at this time—parading them around the Ninth to reassure everyone that they were still totally, 100 percent alive, guaranteed? Regardless, they took no notice of her, which was a vast improvement over their behaviour while living. Gideon had walked past them, leaving Harrow’s dead parents behind to seek out her own.

When she reached her mother’s catacomb at the bottom of the shaft, Gideon impulsively stabbed the sword into the ground and immediately regretted it.

“Oops! Uh… sorry, Mom.” Gideon winced. “Also, sorry Aiglamene. I promise I’ll polish out any scratches afterwards!” It was built for heavy use, at least. That was probably the main reason Aiglamene gave it to her.

Gideon settled down cross-legged in front of her sword. It was sticking up out of the ground like the grave marker of a fallen warrior in a battlefield or an offering to lure some angry spirit from Gideon’s comics.

“So. Hi, Mom. I got a sword,” Gideon said, and awkwardly scratched the back of her head. This was stupid. And pointless. Her mother’s flesh was long decayed, her bones were repurposed into some fieldworker or part of Harrow’s collection of creepy jewellery, and her spirit presumably went wherever souls went when they separated from the body. There was no one there; she was just talking to herself.

Nevertheless, she barrelled on. “It’s a standard infantry sword, Aiglamene said, from the Cohort! Aiglamene used to be in the Cohort, a million years ago. I wonder if this was her sword… It certainly looks old enough.

“I told you I’m going to join the Cohort, right? I must’ve. One day, I’ll get away from here, and I can enlist, and I’ll finally be free from all these morbid assholes. I know that means leaving you behind, but… I feel like you’d understand, right? You can’t’ve known what this place was like when you landed here—no one recognised you, so you can’t be from the Ninth. If you knew what the Ninth was like, you’d want me to get away, right?

"And in the Cohort, I’ll get to fight—really fight, on the front lines, against, like, traitors and rebels and stuff! You should see how awesome these guys are in my comics—or maybe you already know. I dunno where you’re from. I’d kill to face one for real. And with this sword, it’s like I’m training in advance for when I finally get out of here.

“In the meantime, just think of how much skeleton ass I can kick with this big fuckoff sword! Harrow’s not gonna know what hit her; she won’t be able to make skeletons fast enough. It’ll be an absolute _massacre_!”

Invigorated, Gideon jumped up and yanked her sword from the ground to give her mother a demonstration. She adjusted her grip and stance like Aiglamene had drilled into her that morning and set about attacking invisible enemies, occasionally narrating to her mother what she was doing. Gideon with a sword in her hands was as natural as breathing, but this two-hander was something else entirely. Finally, she had something with a real _weight_ to it, now that she was old enough to wield it. It felt like she could keep this up forever.

She must have stayed there for hours. She was starving when she finally stopped, and the sweat was pouring down her face and cooling uncomfortably on her clothes.

“Well, I should probably go,” Gideon said to the mother that wasn’t there. “I’ll come back later when I’m _even better_ and I’ll show you what I can do then!”

She gave her mother a little salute like they did in the Cohort and began the long trek back up.

Gideon was still high on adrenaline when she came across Harrow at the other end of a hallway as she was returning to her room to tend to her sword. Harrow paused and turned her narrowed gaze onto Gideon. Harrow’s lip curled.

Gideon adjusted her grip on the hilt. “What’s your problem?”

“What is that ghastly instrument?” Harrow started speaking almost before Gideon had finished her question, and Gideon realised that she wasn’t glaring at Gideon, but at her sword.

“Standard infantry Cohort sword,” Gideon said smugly, waving the sword around for emphasis. “You likey?”

“It’s repulsive. There must be something wrong with it,” Harrow said. “It doesn’t surprise me at all that _you’d_ like it, though.” She used the same sneering tone she always used when talking to Gideon, but she seemed distant somehow. She was still fixated on the sword; she hadn’t looked up at Gideon once.

“How about I test it out on you? Then we’ll see who… has something… wrong with them!” Nailed it. “Look, whatever, en garde!”

“I have much better things to be doing than entertaining your childish whims, Griddle.”

She whipped around and disappeared in a swish of black fabric, leaving Gideon clutching her sword like a fool and feeling weirdly disappointed. Whatever, she was probably just intimidated by how outmatched she was against Gideon now. Gideon wasn’t going to let Harrow being a weirdo ruin her day. She’d clean her sword, hop in the sonic, get something to eat, and maybe after she’d go train in the leek fields. If her mother were one of the skeletons there, Gideon could give her another demonstration. Even though it was stupid.

Gideon would get away from the Ninth if it were the last thing she ever did. And it would all start here, with this sword.

**Author's Note:**

> How the hell did Wake get into the sword?? Where was she before she was in the sword? Did she stick around with her body/bones, or at the place where she crash-landed? I have so many questions!!!


End file.
